After a quick hug, and a wave of his hand, he motioned for me to hurry. he was parked just beyond the sliding glass doors. And so, feeling myself slipping into an old habit, I slung my bag over my shoulder, shook my head in disbelief, and did what for four years as a child had been part of my daily routine: I followed him out for a walk. via Budapest. It would be almost impossible to overstate how dramatically the course of my life changed when my family moved to Hungary in the early 1990s. Both of my parents grew up in Ohio—my mother in a poor corner of Youngstown and my father in a middle-class neighborhood in the sleepy town of Dover. When I was born in 1985, the last of three children, we lived in a small split-level house in Austintown, a suburb of Youngstown. My dad, one of the few people in my extended family with a college degree, was 11 years into a promising but unusual career as a CFO at General Electric. Neither of my parents had ventured far from their childhood circumstances. In 1989, however, as political reforms swept Central and Eastern Europe, General Electric entered Hungary and bought a lamp manufacturer, Tungsram, then one of the country’s largest and most iconic brands. The takeover, orchestrated by Jack Welch, made headlines – and my dad, riding the wave of a stunning historical moment, accepted an overseas assignment to help introduce capitalist practices into a business with a long communist past. We arrived in Budapest in the summer of 1990—with my grandmother probably in tow—to find our reality completely transformed. My brother, sister, and I were enrolled in an international school where, unlike suburban Ohio, the nationalities of our classmates spanned the globe. My parents, who by then had barely left the United States, were soon shepherding us on trips to Krakow, Madrid, Rome. We bought a brand new Volvo station wagon. And perhaps the most luxurious of all, which to my parents must have been a comically unfathomable luxury: General Electric hired us a driver—a man named László, who arrived every morning in his immaculately clean Opel Kadett to transport the siblings me and me in town at our school. In the 32 years since, Hungary has undergone its own dramatic transformation. Once considered the most entrepreneurial and Western-friendly nation of the former Eastern Bloc, it has recently become the poster child for nationalism, illiberalism and the erosion of democratic values, offering a political vision emulated in Poland and admired by populist figures in France , Italy and the United States. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, now Europe’s longest-serving elected leader, has steadily consolidated power by rewriting the Constitution, overhauling electoral laws to favor his Fidesz party, undermining the independence of the judiciary and controlling most of the media of the country of its political allies. The influence of his authoritarian tendencies has also seeped into the country’s political and cultural life, leading to the expulsion of a liberal university and affecting leadership and offerings in theaters and museums. I sensed some of the disturbing undercurrents within minutes of my arrival when László, on our way from the airport, began to echo pro-Kremlin conspiracies about the war in Ukraine that have been widely disseminated through state media. media and pro-government news agencies. Despite its modest size and economic performance (its population, under 10 million, is about that of Michigan and its GDP about that of Kansas), Hungary has garnered enormous media attention in recent years for its self-described illiberal Mr. Orbán’s agenda. Several Western journalists descended on the capital and returned with either ominous reports on the country’s drive towards autocracy or salacious interviews extolling Mr Orbán’s conservative values. Meanwhile, in the steady stream of polarizing missions, I felt that my increasingly distant memories and personal impressions of the place had been replaced by a series of politicized caricatures. And so, earlier this year, after spending much of the pandemic traveling around the United States, I chose to push the boundaries of remote work and settle down for a while in the city where I formed my first lasting memories. My hope was that I could recall some elements of my childhood, brush up on my language skills, reconnect with old family friends, assess the city’s political realities, and, perhaps most importantly, get to know the place — to learn its rhythms, appreciate its culture, observe the lives of everyday Hungarians — from the highest perch of adulthood. If Hungary has become the European Union’s most defiant state, then Budapest has become Hungary’s most defiantly liberal enclave — to the extent that short-term visitors to the city can easily miss signs of a tense political environment. The opposition parties are making noise. Protests are commonplace. Partly in response to the passage of recent anti-LGBTQ legislation, Budapest’s Pride march has drawn massive crowds in recent years, and LGBTQ-friendly venues are on the rise. Even the existence of progressive community centers—such as Auróra, a social hub that offers a bar and concert venue and has leased office space to NGOs focused on marginalized groups—suggests a kind of political and intellectual tolerance. And yet behind many of the organizations that don’t go along with the politics of the ruling party is a history of instability — in terms of funding, legal protection, reputation. According to a 2022 report by the Artistic Freedom Initiative, Hungarian artists and institutions opposed to Fidesz “are finding it increasingly difficult—and some speculate even futile—to win state support without bowing to government demands and thus putting endangering their artistic or personal integrity”. No modern portrait of Budapest could overlook its grandeur: its opulent architecture, its stunning public spaces, its many opulent interiors. The baths—especially Gellért, with its art nouveau decor and stunningly beautiful tiles—are among the city’s most noteworthy attractions. (Hungary is rich with thermal springs, there are 123 in Budapest alone.) Other attractions include the Hungarian State Opera House, which reopened this year after extensive restoration, and the newly created Museum of Ethnography, part of an ambitious development project — opposed by local politicians — to transform Budapest’s central park into a cultural hub that a must visit for tourists and locals alike. Working hours in New York in Central Europe meant that my days were largely free until 3pm. (after which I worked until about 11pm), leaving me plenty of time in the mornings and early afternoons to explore the city. Some days I spent in a one-sided search for specific artists: the architectural greats of Ödön Lechner, whose work came to define the Hungarian Secession movement, a local expression of Art Nouveau. or the mosaics and stained glass art of Miksa Róth, whose legacy is scattered throughout the city. Other days were spent roaming more freely, poking my head into the charming courtyards of unassuming apartment buildings or visiting former teachers and old family friends.
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Wandering through familiar places, I felt the nostalgic power of old memories bubbling to the surface: Here was the apartment building where Balázs Szokolay, our beloved piano teacher, lived with his mother, a sculptor. Here was our school, where, during the Persian Gulf War, the Hungarian police stationed armed guards at the gate. Here was the park where, when curiosity got the better of him, my brother lit his string with a match. In the afternoons, my feet aching from walking, I often settled in to work in a cafe or one of the city’s many publicly accessible (and unexpectedly glamorous) libraries. My favorite pastime, however, was wandering Budapest’s great cemeteries: Kerepesi in District 8, Farkasréti in District 12, Kozma Street in District 10. All three are outside the popular tourist zones, which meant that, coming and going, I realized a wider part of the city. I found the cemeteries, filled with magnificent statues from a range of eras, some with elements of socialist realism and others classically suggesting the life’s work of the people buried beneath them, to be microcosms of Budapest itself: ornate and impressive in their well . moving parts and unkempt at their margins. It was the small, quiet moments that I enjoyed the most: at first I’d go for a walk, then a pet, then I’d stop to meet Erika Bajkó, who ran a small dog grooming business around the corner from my apartment near Rákóczi Square. Taking a look at the vaulted ceiling inside the entrance to the Széchenyi Baths. making an emotionally charged pilgrimage to my old home in Törökvész, a neighborhood in the Buda Hills. Joining the afternoon crowds in the middle of the Szabadság híd, or Freedom Bridge, where strong winds over the Danube helped wash away the heat of late spring and early summer. studying the poetry of Miklós Radnóti, a famous Hungarian writer murdered in the Holocaust, as I wandered the neighborhood where he lived. “I can’t know what this is…
